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ERA23LA381 · Boeing B75

19 Sept 2023 · Erwinna, PA, United States

Boeing B75 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff

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Event

NTSB case
ERA23LA381
Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Accident
InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
Completed
Event fatalities
Unknown
Ground fatalities
Unknown
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
General aviation
WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
Visual Meteorological Cond

Boeing B75

Aircraft type
Boeing B75
Category
Airplane
RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
N46Y
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo not recorded
Aircraft age
About 82 years (built 1941)
Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
Part 91: General Aviation
Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
Takeoff
Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
Loss of control in flight
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot was attempting to take off in a right crosswind and had the right aileron fully deflected during the takeoff roll. As the tail-wheel equipped airplane became airborne, a wind gust pushed the airplane to the left side of the runway toward a tree line. The pilot attempted to turn the airplane back into the wind, but the lower left wing contacted a tree limb. The airplane descended into trees resulting in substantial damage to the rudder and both lower wings. The pilot reported there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.

Probable cause

The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane while taking off in a crosswind.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ERA23LA381
Event ID
20230928193158
Case number
ERA23LA381
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
  • Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: b9ad0670cd00035aeb9b5dc44bbcd132f5240e9de51dbd16ba6b239fdd49ab7e; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:10:33.642Z.